Of Dwindling Flames and Hearts
by TorNathan
Summary: After the final battle with Xehanort, King Mickey has went missing. Sora, Kairi, and Riku set out on a daring rescue mission to the ancient world of Lordran, a world fading from the light it once thrived in. But dark and mysterious forces are occurring within the world, and our heroes decide to split up to investigate these happenings, and to find their King and the X-Blade.


_TorNathan: Hello and welcome everyone to a brand new story, brought to you by myself and one of my greatest friends, Lucenthia!_

 _Lucenthia: We hope you enjoy the story!_

 _TorNathan: What a boring stick in the mud._

 _Lucenthia: Just ... tell them the story, please._

 _TorNathan: On it!_

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_

 _Hello, everyone! Welcome to our newest adventure into fan fiction! It's a big collaboration project between the two of us, and today we're really excited to bring you a crossover of **Kingdom Hearts** and **Dark Souls**. We have put a lot of time and effort into creating this grand story, and we're ready to share it all with you!_

 _Some things to note on the timeline! This story takes place directly after the final battle with Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts 3. And on the Dark Souls side of things, it takes place before the events of the first game, primarily before the fall of the Age of Fire. We don't think you need to be well versed in Dark Souls lore, but it may help a lot if you're into it!_

 _This story is going to be crazy and lots of fun and mystery, and we're hoping you all love and enjoy reading it as much as we do writing it! Now for some of the disclaimers before we kick it off!_

 _Rated T: Fantasy violence and dark, disturbing themes.  
Disclaimer: We do not own any of the ideas you will read within this story. Only OCs that appear are our own, the rest go to the proper owners of this series._

 _We hope you enjoy the story, and leave us some reviews and criticisms afterward! See you soon!_

* * *

 **Chapter** **I**

 **A Simple Rescue Mission™**

Sora limped as quickly as he could up the ethereal stairs to the top of the Mysterious Tower. His shoulders felt as stiff as blocks of wood, and the rest of his body didn't feel much better. Despite that, he felt nothing but excitement and joy. He brushed his unruly brown hair that he had let grow during the battles against Xehanort, and relived the huge fight at the Keyblade Graveyard that had only happened yesterday. Muscle pain was an easy price to pay for vanquishing Xehanort once and for all. He and his friends had saved the worlds a third time, and hopefully for the last.

Even better was what awaited him in Yen Sid's room. The mahogany door, embossed with a crescent moon and star, vanished in a flash of light as Sora approached, revealing a circular room where Riku and Kairi stood. Kairi strode over to Sora and embraced him, saying, "I knew Donald needed to wake you up."

"I only overslept by a few minutes," Sora protested. Kairi giggled and held on for a few extra seconds, and Sora let her rest her head on his shoulder. She then pulled away and Riku made his way over to Sora for his own hug. Sora couldn't help but notice that the two of them were almost the same height, which sent a small tang of pride rushing through his stomach.

Riku pulled away quickly and said, "Yen Sid's found Mickey."

"What!?" Sora whirled to face Yen Sid, his heart rushing with excitement. "How did you do that?"

"The Star Shard is my own invention," Yen Sid said. "Given a bit of time, it was simple to trace it." The old master flipped through some books, dust blowing from the aged tomes.

"Where is it?" Sora asked, looking between Riku and Kairi. "Were you guys waiting for me?"

"It's fine." Riku squeezed his shoulder. "You deserved a good night's sleep."

"We all did." Sora gently shoved Riku back. "I saw you and Xemnas duking it out, and it was so cool! I can't believe the way you pulled off that flip." Sora gestured wildly with his hands. "You know? And you were so awesome as well," he said as he turned to Kairi. "I couldn't believe it when you and Mickey came out of the air and took the X-Blade right from Young Xehanort's hands."

"Thanks," Riku said. "You weren't too bad yourself." Sora's blue eyes crinkled as he smiled slightly. "Now let's finish the job." The three friends nodded together and turned to Yen Sid.

"It was difficult to find Mickey because of how far the Star Shard took him," Yen Sid said. He conjured a three-dimensional image of the Realm of Light, with scattered dots in space representing different worlds. There were countless numbers. He pointed to a dim spot on the very far edge of the map and said, "But the Star Shard is in this world, Lordran."

"I've never heard of it," Riku said, staring intensely at the dot as if he could glean more information just by looking closer. The projection slowly rotated. Sora poked his finger through it and smiled at the technology.

"It is a distant and ancient world, and went overlooked by even Xehanort," Yen Sid said. "It is so old, I suspect it used to be part of the Original World, before it was shattered by the first Keyblade War. If you remember from your studies …" Master Yen Sid rapped Sora's head with a wand, causing him to pull his hand from the projection, "... then you will know that all worlds were once a collective super world, for ease reference. This Lordran seems to date back to then."

Kairi's eyes widened at the mention of the original Keyblade War. "Does that mean there are other Keyblade Wielders there?"

Yen Sid tilted his head in thought and said, "Perhaps. You will have to find out for yourselves."

"Do you think they'd have Keyblade armour like Master Aqua?" Sora's mind raced and he imagined gigantic knights posing with lightning flashing in the background. He struck his own pose, earning confused looks.

"Is that everything?" Riku moved in front of Sora, pushing him back out of his small fantasy. "Do we know why he hasn't come back?"

Yen Sid shook his head. "We only know that the Star Shard landed there, and has not been used since. Most likely, it is broken, which is why Mickey is stranded."

"That's all we need to know," Riku said. "Mickey needs us again, and I don't want to waste time." Riku made his way towards the door. Yen Sid stopped him, however.

"Be warned, young wielders: Lordran's light is fading," Yen Sid said, beckoning to the dim and flickering world on the map. "Darkness encroaches on the Heart of the world. As a result, the three of you will be weaker, both physically and magically. This journey will not be an easy one."

The three of them nodded. "Like being in the Underworld with Hades," Sora said.

"Or being in the Realm of Darkness," Kairi added. Yen Sid approved of their analogies with a firm nod. He dismissed the projection and walked around the desk to come closer to the trio.

"Anything else?" Riku asked.

"There is one more thing." Yen Sid hesitated and stroked his long, white beard. "I know how deep your friendship with Mickey runs," he looked at each one of them in turn, "but I must stress the importance of finding the X-Blade. In its complete form, it could tear a hole in the Realm of Light."

"But Mickey wouldn't lose it," Riku said. "We find Mickey, and we find the X-Blade."

"Mickey knows how important the X-Blade is," Kairi agreed. "He'll hang onto it."

"Yeah, we'll go in, meet some new friends, kick some bad guy butt, find Mickey, and come back in no time." Sora flashed Yen Sid his trademark grin. "Don't worry, we got this."

Yen Sid slowly nodded with closed eyes. "Your Gummi ship is outside. Chip and Dale delivered it, and say it is fully functional."

"Chip and Dale said that?" Sora asked.

Yen Sid closed his eyes briefly, as if he was summoning patience, and said, "Their exact wording was, 'Sora could even barrel roll this into a meteor and it'll be a-okay'."

"It was once," Sora protested as Riku and Kairi stared at him. "And it looks really cool when it works."

Riku dragged Sora by the scruff of his neck out of Yen Sid's room. The three friends descended the tower, talking about the adventure to come. At the bottom of the stairs were Riku and Kairi's packed bags. They each shouldered them and bounded out into the grassy courtyard.

Chip and Dale weren't lying. They had repaired the Gummi ship, and its red, blocky hull gleamed in the dim moonlight. Sora ducked under yellow wings with cannons hovering a few feet below them, and climbed through a small hatch in the bottom. The common area was just as he remembered it, from the kitchenette stuffed in one corner to the couch that shone like plastic in the other.

"I think I prefer the corridors of darkness," Riku said, as he poked the couch with his toe.

"It's cozy," Kairi said. "Where did you sleep?"

"Over here," Sora said, leading them down a corridor to three bedrooms, each with identical utilitarian designs.

"Let me guess," Riku glanced at the room at the far end of the corridor. "That one's yours." He pointed to the room with Sora's clothes heaped in a pile by the unmade bed.

"Don't try and shame me." Sora pointed at Riku. "I'll have you know I was too busy saving the world to clean up all of this."

"And Donald and Goofy were just relaxing on the sidelines?" Kairi said as she peeked into the other two rooms. "These don't have anything in them."

"That's just because they moved out," Sora said. "Do you know how many of Donald's feathers got around the ship?" He flopped onto his bed and stretched in contentment. "Home away from home."

Riku and Kairi had only brought duffel bags of spare clothes, potions, ethers, and elixirs, which they both placed under their beds. As they made themselves at home, Sora bounded into the cockpit and turned on the intercom. "Fasten your seatbelts, everyone, it's your awesome pilot Sora speaking. Next stop, Lordran!"

"Are we going to see any barrel rolls?" Kairi called from her room.

"Only successful ones." Sora pumped his fist as the engines revved and the Gummi ship took flight, blasting into space.

Riku groaning loud enough for Sora to hear was the final touch he needed to confirm that the three of them were back together. The worlds were safe, and now all they had to do was save their mousy friend.

"We're coming, Your Majesty."

 ** _~-~-~-~-~-~  
ODFaH  
_** ** _~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I'm telling you, eating with your fingers is the way to go." Sora displayed all ten of his fingers for emphasis, twirling and bending them. "Aladdin and Jasmine had the right idea." The three of them sat at the small round table opposite the kitchenette, where they had left a pot of water to boil.

"Okay, but what about soft ice cream?" Kairi leaned forward in her chair. "How are you going to eat that with fingers?"

"Easy, you just press your fingers together and scoop it out." Sora mimed the gesture and said, "You've got to come visit Agrabah when we're done with this." He nudged Riku's foot, which rested on top of the table. "Did you ever visit it?"

"For a few minutes to kidnap Jasmine while you were fighting genie Jafar," Riku said. "I'm not sure either of them would be happy to see me."

"I'll just tell them you helped save the world and Kairi," Sora said. "They'll be fine with it."

"And Jasmine is really nice," Kairi added. "I talked with her when all seven of us princesses were in Hollow Bastion."

Riku shrugged. "Let's just worry about that after we find Mickey."

"That'll be easy," Sora said, drumming his fingers on the table. The knock was snappish and loud.

"Don't say that," Riku said. "It feels like you're jinxing it."

"After beating Xehanort, you're afraid of bad luck?" Kairi asked.

"Better than being afraid of centipedes." Riku raised an eyebrow at Kairi and smirked.

"Hey, those are actual bugs that are terrifying and dangerous," Kairi said matter-of-factly. "But after I killed that giant one in Twilight Town, they're not so bad." She cringed her shoulders and shook her head, as if ice poured down her spine.

"And we're all proud of you," Riku said, getting up as the pot of water behind them started to boil. "Now let me guess, Sora wants hot chocolate, and Kairi wants tea."

"That grey kind that grows in Disney Castle?" Kairi's eyes lit up as she brought her hands to her heart in joy.

"Minnie created an addict when she fed that to us," Riku joked, pouring the water into three cups, one with chocolate powder and adding grey leaves into the other two.

As he walked over with the three cups in hand, a light dinging sound echoed through the ship. Sora beamed at them and said, "Lordran ahoy!" He felt excitement course through him, already eager for a new adventure, even though the last one had ended so soon ago.

"Do we have a plan for when we land?" Riku placed the cups on the table, and Kairi took a grateful sip. Sora downed a gulp and spasmed at the scalding heat in his throat. His two best friends laughed at him.

"We … we ask locals if they've seen Mickey." Sora said, regaining his composure. "He's pretty recognizable, ya know."

As Riku opened his mouth, the lights flickered on and off, and the ship shook a little bit. Riku summoned his Keyblade on instinct and he put his back to a wall, while Sora darted up to the cockpit to inspect the ship's surroundings. Kairi opened the doors to the bedrooms to investigate the interiors. Kairi said over her shoulder, "Nothing in here!"

The ship shuddered again. Then the intercom crackled to life and Sora's voice rang through the ship. "Up to the cockpit, now!"

He was struggling with the wheel when they came, while a hologram of a cathedral flickered by his left. It rotated and blinked on and off. "No Heartless in or around us. The flight systems just failed. Well, the magical parts of it." The world of Lordran was a small green dot in front of them that was getting larger and larger by the second.

"Why?" Riku asked, holding onto the seat as the ship shook and vibrated violently.

"I don't know," Sora said. "But we're going to crash into Lordran if I don't get them to work." The ship shuddered yet another time and started to tilt alarmingly.

"What's with the church?" Kairi pointed at the screen to Sora's left, which promptly decided to die, all light vanishing.

"That's where the cockpit locked onto if we want to eject ourselves out of here." Sora said. He rattled two joysticks to his right with no effect.

"Is anything working?" Kairi asked, fingers digging so deep into the chair her knuckles were white.

"The running water, air conditioning, the escape capsule," Sora started listing off his fingers, letting go of the controls, which Riku promptly latched onto.

"Anything that'll help us fly?" Kairi asked, her voice stressed. "Any part of the engines?"

The windshield started to glow red-hot as the ship entered the atmosphere. The lighting on the dashboard died, leaving the cockpit in near-darkness.

"Escape capsule?" Riku asked, struggling with the ship.

"Escape capsule." Sora nodded. The Gummi ship glowed even more as flames started to catch around the front and sides. Sora opened the door to the capsule quickly. "We're gonna have to squeeze in tight if we want to all fit."

"Will it even work?" Riku scrambled into the seat beside Sora, while Kairi sandwiched herself between them. The belted themselves down as the shaking worsened. Sora's head knocked against the side of the capsule and then back into Kairi's head.

"I think so." Sora dialed numbers into a dialpad on the armrest while sparks flew off the windshield. "All the magical components are failing, but the escape capsule doesn't use magic."

A plastic bubble enclosed itself around the Sora, Riku, and Kairi, and they shot out of the Gummi ship. Sora was pressed into Riku as the escape capsule spun around in the sky. Through the window he caught glimpses of a forest and a blinding sun. He heard Riku groaning through gritted teeth, and was getting slightly nauseous himself. Then the three of them were jerked up, and Sora breathed a sigh of relief. The parachute had activated, and the three of them fell to the ground at a much slower rate.

Kairi wiped her hair from her face, plastered all around. She sighed and said, "Mickey's Star Shard had better work."

"If our Gummi ship didn't, there's a good chance his Star Shard won't," Riku said. "But I can probably use a Corridor of Darkness to get us out of here."

The escape capsule thudded to the ground, and the three of them tumbled out into a sparse forest on the side of a mountain. Thin pine trees lay broken on the ground where the escape capsule had ploughed past. Sora squinted through the blinding sun, and stared at the sight in front of him.

A pristine city loomed before them, made out of white stone that reflected the sun off its railings and archways. Series of spires jutted their way down cathedrals and grand halls, all of which led onto stone steps that funnelled their way down into a massive courtyard. A sundial stood in the center of the courtyard, and it cast a long shadow.

The city was clearly occupied. Kairi saw some people dash inside their homes, while several soldiers in silver armour filed from the courtyard into the forest outside, straight towards the three of them.

"Uh oh," Kairi muttered. "We're still trying to preserve the World Order, right?"

"That's not the priority right now." Riku nodded at the rooftops, where several knights wielded bows ten feet tall. They weren't drawn, but all of them were held at ready. They had arrows the size of spears stacked by them.

"That armour is so cool," Sora whispered. "I really hope we don't need to fight them. Dude, Riku, look at that armour." Riku shrugged him off as the knights approached.

Kairi had to admit that he had a point. The knights were adorned in simple but elegant silver armour. Most were scratched, and some were dented, but all were well-maintained. Helms with slim horns adorned each knight, hiding a face in dark shadow. Four knights wielding halberds that were even longer than the ten-foot bows levelled them at the three travellers. Sora stared up the shaft of the absolutely massive silver weapon, and gulped. This knight said in an imperious voice, echoing deep within his helm, "This is Anor Londo, capital of light. Name thyselves, trespassers."

* * *

 _ **Post Author's Note:**_

 _Lucenthia: Well, we really hope you liked chapter one! Make sure to leave us a review down in the box! And if you have any criticisms or thoughts, make sure to tell us!_

 _TorNathan: Yeah! We'd love to hear everything you're thinking about this story! We'll see you in chapter two, so follow us and the story to be alerted when it's published!_

 _~TorNathan & Lucenthia_


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